new baby tracking app recommendations?

[bradleybecky]

anybody use these? or a complete waste of time? have come across a couple that track feeding/changing - even growth charts apparently?!

When ds(12) was born, before apps, I found bf on demand hard and when tired it seemed relentless.

I started writing down on a paper chart when he was feeding and when I could see there actually was a general pattern and the length of time between feeds was increasing it help motivate me to keep going.

If there were apps available then I probably would have used one.

It entirely depends on you. I personally would not find that helpful but other people find it reassuring.

The wonder weeks app is good.

I loved our tracker app. Time used to run away from me when my daughter was born last year. I'd lose track of hours and then wonder why the baby was crying. It was also helpful in working out a baby-led routine as what seemed to me to be erratic sleeping and eating were reasonably consistent when looked at over the period of seven days.

My lo was formula fed so I could see exactly what she'd drank each day, and if it went on a downwards trajectory over a few days, I knew before any symptoms appeared that she was about to come down with something.

I got plenty of comments however about new fangled technology, how things 'weren't like that in my day', and tutting about reading the baby's cues rather than checking my app (but that didn't work for us anyway as my daughter would be equally furious about everything so there was no differentiating between her being hungry, or her not being able to reach a toy she wanted).

DON'T

babies don't have a pattern early on, it changes as they grow and they grow a lot in the first few weeks. If you track it and something changes it'll be another thing to worry about, and you'll have enough to worry about unnecessarily as it is.

I use one called Nursing Timer. It's free. Quite basic but easy and quick to use.

I used Baby Connect with DD1 and am using it again with DD2 (5 days old). It's not free but worth paying for.

I find it useful to see how often she's feeding (she's small so needs to be woken to feed) and in time I'll use it to try and build a baby led sleep routine.

I know this is from ages ago, but in case it's useful these lovely books are designed for tracking sleep, feed etc patterns and are a great way to stay 'tech free' with the kiddies whilst still recording all of the important details www.tiddlersandnippers.com

Wonderweeks app is great!

I used the notes bit on my phone to record time, length of feed and, most importantly, which boob I had used!!! I found it helpful as I ff DD and so was unsure if I was bf properly! I went to a bf support group in the first few weeks and found it useful to look at my notes and say. ' he's bf between 10 and 14 times per day is this normal?' (Yep it was!) but I doubt I could remember without noting it down as it just seemed like constant feeding.

Sprout. Does feeds, sleep, medical (vaccinations/weight etc), milestones. It's ace and you can use multiple devices to view and update records for one child. I recommend it a lot. Even if you stop using the feeding/sleep tracker, the rest is like an electronic red book

I liked the Mumsnet baby bundle (I don't work for them!) tbh. It did what I wanted in terms of tracking and I liked the medical bits and bobs on it too. It felt a bit more practical and realistic than some of the American (seeking medical advice for everything) and NHS (just plain dull) guidelines in other apps.

I use baby connect for tracking feeds and find it very useful, especially in the early days when you don't know whether your coming or going!

When dts were small I had a white board which recorded each 24 hours, that info then got transposed into paper spreadsheets so we had a record.

An app would have been bloody amazing.

To be fair they were veery prem, on a lot of meds and I barley knew what day it was due to sleep deprivation never mind who had how much medication and when!

I didn't use one to start with as there's no real pattern and DS was 5 weeks premature. At around 10 weeks I got one- it's called baby tracker- I love it! If it wasn't for that thing, I wouldn't remember how long between feeds DS goes, it's been very helpful to see when he last went to the toilet if he had been poorly and how long he slept for. Each to there own but I love it and think it's well worth it

I'm so old school, I loved writing it down rather than putting it in an app, that's why I loved the tiddler tracker journal 😀😀 its so nice to look back over it and see how my little one has progressed as well

I think the one I had was just called BabyTracker. I liked it because my memory was shit during maternity leave so I'd often forget when he'd last been fed. It helped me pre-empt the screaming (he'd go from 0 - 100 in seconds).

It was also useful when he was jaundiced and the dr wanted us to track his feeds.

I stopped using it eventually, once it stopped being worth the effort. But for a while it really was

I tried the baby tracker app too, but I preferred using the tiddler tracker book as it felt nicer to be writing things down in front of the little one rather than being on my phone if that makes sense. I think I'm old fashioned 😀😀 Plus then I was able to compare the info easily when I had my second one.